1996 Ukraine

This trip was led by Marshall Petersen, O.D.
During September 1996, a VOSH team worked for nine days in Shchors, Ukraine. Travel time to this area from Minneapolis/St. Paul was 36 hours including 2½ hours spent in customs in Kiev. The town of 17,000 is situated approximately 150 miles northeast of Kiev, a five hour drive in a 1950 vintage bus. It is approximately 35 miles east of Chernobyl.

The area is hard hit by depression and unemployment and is now in the process of reorganization after the 1991 break up of the Soviet Bloc. Many of the inhabitants of the area are refugees from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The population is well educated with a national literacy rate of 97%. Many of the patients seen were professionals, school children and pensioners. Health care is extremely limited. There appeared to be no shortage of health providers but there is an extreme scarcity of equipment, medications, surgical and hospital supplies, and and salaries for providers.

Eyeglasses and some supplies and instruments along with gifts of food and clothing distributed at the clinic were shipped four months ahead in a cargo container of humanitarian aid. This was fortunate because of the difficulties encountered at customs in Kiev.

Approximately 890 people were seen by VOSH and most received at least one pair of eyeglasses. The doctors saw a number of persons who had lost sight because of glaucoma. Some had been treated with Pilocarpine which was scarce and often impossible for them to acquire. Some had never been treated. Unfortunately the scarcity of medications to treat glaucoma continues. Many of the children required corrections with high cylinder.

The clinic was held in the Doma Cultura (House of Culture), the largest building in town built by the Russians during the occupation. This was the first time many of the citizens had ever seen an American. During the first days of the clinic, reception of the team and its efforts were met with some skepticism and suspicion, but later, people formed the usual crowd waiting to see the doctors. Team members were housed with families because there are no hotel or restaurant facilities in the town. Capitalist businesses were few in number. There were no church buildings and only one gas station, with no gasoline available. Most people walk or use bicycles. A few people had small cars. Most families have garden plots with a diet heavily loaded with potatoes.

Along with the recycled eyeglasses, 600 pair of new reading glasses were donated by Twin City Optical Company and Augustana Lutheran Church, West St. Paul, MN.

Gratitude of the community was expressed with concerts, folk dancing, dinners, sport expositions and small gifts of food.

Team members were headed by Dr. Marshall H. Petersen, O.D., W. St. Paul, and included Dr. Sharon Lorton, O.D., St. Cloud, MN, Mary Johnson, St. Cloud and Harlean Petersen, W. St. Paul, opticians. Support staff members were Lou and Loretta Langer, Stillwater, MN, Albert and Betty Poehling, W. St. Paul, Michael and Heather Pickett, Inver Grove Heights, MN.

Chris Strand-Hooper, RN, of W. St. Paul, a 30 year staff member of Ramsey Hospital, St. Paul, accompanied the group. She worked with local medical doctors and nurses explaining medications received in humanitarian shipments and also discussing patient care procedures currently used in the U.S.

Submitted by Harlean Petersen